Regional Winters
by Waflicka
Summary: Really short tales of different people dealing with life in the pokemon world. T for one word. I went with better safe than sorry, it could probably be k


Mary plopped down under the shade of a tree glaring at the afternoon sun. She needed to get to Slateport by tomorrow to enter the contest but it was miserable out. The humidity was causing her lavender hair to attempt to escape its pigtails and in spite of wearing a mini skirt and belly shirt the heat was causing her clothes to feel sticky. Besides, she was getting sunburned. This was not what winter was supposed to be like. Back home it was grey skies and cold rain. Here even when it rained it was warm out. She took off the short sleeve jacket her mother had made her bring with her and folded it under her head to use as a pillow. She was secretly glad her mother had made her wear it as her preferred outfit of a sleeveless belly shirt and skirt didn't protect her skin much from the elements, or from paths that aren't kept up as much as they should be. She slipped off her shoes and thigh highs before lying back and pulling out a pokeball.

"Come out Ginny"

A marill popped out looking around curiously. Seeing her trainer lying on the ground, not looking like she was willing to do anything soon the blue mouse tilted her head before chirping "Marill?"

"Ginny dear, be a doll and use that mist attack we've been practicing," Mary said without even opening her eyes.

The marill trilled her name in reply before coating the area liberally in the ice type attack. The she bounced over to her trainer and curled up next to her.

Mary gave a sigh of relief. The mist attack felt good. She absentmindedly stroked Ginny while thinking of the contest tomorrow.

She hand't used Albus in awhile, not since she had caught Ginny. It had been two years since the last time she had caught a pokemon, she couldn't really help showering the new baby with attention, neglecting her starter, who was now a pidgeotto. However she had been working really hard on that aerial ace attack and this would be a good opportunity to show it off. Maybe she would use him on the second round and Minerva on the first. Minerva was a rather nice looking weepingbell, and the colored powders the grass/poison type could summon were always good for an appeal. She was currently saving her winnings from battles to buy a leaf stone for Minerva. She wasn't ready to evolve quite yet but by the time she had enough money she should be.

She opened her eyes with a start to see darkness had finally fallen. She quickly jumped to her feet, scolding herself. "I'm 16, I don't need naps anymore, and now I am going to have to get up early to get to Slateport in time." Ginny looked at her trainer and then around her trying to figure out who she was talking to.

"Ginny return." Mary called out while stuffing her feet into socks and shoes. She quickly jumped to her feet and slipped her jacket on while hoisting up her bag.

She had to get a ribbon here, she just had to. After dropping out of school as soon as she was able she took the first boat she could to Hoen. A more tropical climate, and a more forward thinking region. Unlike the rather backwards, in her opinion, Johto. But so far she had entered three contests and had only made it to the second round once. There was no way she was going to go home as a dropout failure, she would win the ribbons and would compete in the grand festival.

Anne sat in her tent grumbling has she ate cold food listening to the rain pour down on the roof of her tent. Her sister had convinced her to take time off before starting college. "It will be fun! You get to train pokemon, see the world, fight gyms.' Bull shit" Anne muttered to herself. Blanche, her persian, gave a cry of agreement while Noir, a haunter and her starter, just cackled at her.

It had started as a light drizzle on her way to Olivine. By last night it had turned into a steady rain and by the time she woke up it was pouring and nothing would convince her to leave the shelter of her tent. She would simply sit here till the rain had done its thing.

Overall she would actually admit that the journey had been fun, at least if you had asked her about 42 hours ago. She had managed to catch a Murkrow and a Spinarak and even managed to evolve the spinarak. She has also made quick work of the first four gyms. Well if you weren't there that is what she would tell you. She actually had to re challenge both Whitney and Morty. But the first two she had done well on.

As a flash of lightening made her tent glow for a minute she sighed and pulled out a guidebook for the Johto region. She flipped though to the section on tourist attractions in olivine, and Noir stopped trying to provoke Blanche to come read over her shoulder. Though she wasn't entirely sure he could read. She was pretty sure he just liked the pictures.

"Light house, boring" Blanche yawned in agreement

"Battle tower? That's promising, oh wait, you guys don't have a high enough level yet, maybe another time. Hmmm, there's a cafe on the waterfront that's supposed to be good. But that's about…Oh the whirl Islands." She sunk into silence as she began reading about them.

Without even putting the book down she began to make herself more comfortable as what she was reading drew her in. Slinging her thick white braid over her shoulder and pulling up her sleeping bag around her. When she had seen, or rather heard, the weather that morning she hadn't even bothered to get dressed so she was still in her comfy flannel pjs.

A couple hours later she set down the guidebook and pulled out two pokeballs releasing and ariados and murkrow. Even if she was the one who made the decisions she liked everyone present when she made them. She patted the arachnid on the head while the flying type found a perch on her shoulder.

"All right guys, I think we should skip the olivine gym leader for now and go straight to Chuck since we have type advantages over him and I have a feeling we will be crushed by Jasmines steal types. " She gave a slight pause there as if waiting for a response. She was met with stares.

"On the way there I was thinking we could stop off to explore some rather dangerous islands. " That got a response. Blanche purred, Gris, the murkrow, gave a caw, Rouge the Ariados nodded her head as she said her name quietly and Haunter cackled. Though that was his general response for everything. Anne simply gave a small smile as she noticed the rain had stopped.

Thomas was outside the city limits of Pewter city hitting a tree and swearing with every word he knew. Which unfortunately for him wasn't many. When he had exhausted his limited vocabulary he fell to the ground and hugged his knees trying hard not to cry.

It had been an overwhelming defeat. Firenze, his metapod, had held on as long as she could, but in the end she was knocked out pretty easily, and while Aqui, his psyduck and starter had put in a good effort, he just couldn't defeat two well trained pokemon. He had rushed his pokemon to the pokemon center and then came out here to be alone and deal with his feelings.

It was humiliating, loosing with a type advantage. And to top it off he had to go back to the pokemon center and do his math homework. He had opted to do the online classes and start his journey when he got to high school with the threat that if his grades started to slip he would have to come straight home. Nothing was said about that happens if his training slipped because of his schoolwork.

Snowflakes drifted onto his nose and he realized he was cold. Actually he was shivering. Hard. It was a lot colder here than it was on his island home. He got up, took a deep breath and brushed the snow off his hat before putting it back on his sun bleached hair and wondering when it had started to snow. Not that it was actually sticking.

By the time he got back to the pokemon center he was able to greet his pokemon cheerfully. He cuddled Firenze and promised Aqui they would train harder; they would get it next time. And he took them up to the room he rented and started working on his math.

Aqui and Firenze started practicing in the background, adding scratches and thuds to the background noise. Thomas was about to turn around and tell them to knock it off and let him study when a bright light lit the room. He spun around on the desk chair to see Firenze leave her metapod shell behind and emerge as a butterfree.

Thomas grinned as the newly evolved pokemon flew over to land on his head.

"You know, tomorrow we will go out and train and we will have that badge by the end of the week."

Henry was making his way across Solaceon town from the daycare side back to the university campus when it started to snow. He didn't notice at first, he was so wrapped up in his thoughts, but then his gligar, Edward, landed on his shoulder clearly complaining about the weather. Henry didn't really mind, it had been too cold to snow the last week or so and it's presence now meant it had warmed up. It had even managed to warm up as the sun was setting, which meant they would likely keep the slightly warmer temperatures for a while. Though he wasn't thrilled that he was caught on the opposite side of town from the dorms.

He had a part time job at the daycare and was heading home from there. His original plan had been to stop by the student rec-center on the way, but the snow would probably slow him down enough that it would be too late by the time he got there. Sure enough, as he was thinking that snowflakes started falling thicker.

He was wandering down some of the back roads when the wild machop attacked. He wasn't a trainer by any means, but like most students he did train as a hobby.

"You up for it?" He asked the bug like pokemon clinging to his jacket. In reply Edward buried his face in Henry's scarf. The man shrugged.

"Suit yourself, Watch out Joan, it's cold out." He released the Kirlia who blinked as she looked around the rapidly whitening landscape. She quickly identified why she was called out and turned to face the fighting type.

"Ok Joan, use confusion"

The Kirlia's eyes glowed for a minute as she tossed the machop, who rolled as was back up not looking to bad. He came at her with what looked like a cross chop.

"Teleport, then magical leaf." Henry called out, stomping his feet to keep them warm.

Right was the machop was about to hit Joan disappeared, reappearing behind him and releasing the multi colored leaves. This scared the machop off and it ran into the quickly darkening night.

"Well done Joan" She preened under the praise "But lets get you back into your pokeball where it's warm.

He would have put Edward back in his pokeball too since it was cold and Solaceon was very safe, but there had been reports of increased gang activity lately, and it was always better safe than sorry.

This small bit of caution proved unnecessary as he made it to the dorms just fine.


End file.
